My Student Exchange Trip to Germany!

Monday, 13 March 2017

I had said my goodbyes to Yasmin and her younger brother Nikki in the morning after church.

I said my goodbyes to Stefan and Julian at home as Stefan was sick and Julian didn't want to go to the airport. Julian just said Tschüss to me. Stefan and I hugged and we both cried a little. Christina, Jonas, Elisa and I loaded up the car and we picked Oma up on the way to the airport.

(München [Munich] -Dubai)

After checking my bags in, we walked around the airport and then walked up towards customs. Christina hugged me and we shed a few tears, Elisa hugged me next full on crying and I cried lots too, she has taken a place in my heart as my younger sister and it was hard saying goodbye. Jonas had said nothing at all once we had got to the airport. As he hugged me he burst out crying, his face turning red. He told me not to go, to stay, that this is my home. I told him he was always welcome to come visit me here in New Zealand and that one day hopefully I can go back and meet them again. I hugged Oma and she cried too. I then walked into the line to head into customs. I turned around as I was about to walk through the door and I saw them all crying and waving. I was still crying as it was sad to leave my second family. I waved back and with tears still and I bent down to the kids heights so they could see me a little better and I put my hand on my mouth and turned it into a smile. I saw Elisa and Jonas smile while crying as I walked into customs.

(Dubai-Sydney-Christchurch)

To put a long story about my flight into short words:

I couldn't sleep the 6 hour flight to Dubai. When we landed in Dubai, customs was strict, had to wat an hour in a line just to go to the toilet. Had an hour and a half delay in Dubai. Arrived late in Sydney, customs was weird, borded the plane late in Sydney. Arrived in Christchurch along with 3 other planes so the declaring line was super super long. But thankfully, when I said I only have 1 thing to declare the lady said "That's fine just continue down this lane straight to the exit." I was super happy as I didn't have to go through the super long x-ray line.

I kept walking super fast and looking out the doors to see if mum was there. I finally came out and there she was! I walked straight to her, as we hugged we both cried.

Thursday, 9 March 2017

We drove to Neusaß for a faschings street parade. It was a fun experience but I wasn't allowed to take photos as there was some sort of rule about it. But it was an amazing time the kids came home with bags full of candy. One of the floats people came over towards my side and he filled my pocket with candy and said "For you sweet thang", which I found very weird as he looked like he was in his twenties.

Monday 28th February 2017:

We went to another Faschings street in Gablingen which was only a five minute drive away from Hirblingen. It was cold and as soon as it was over it started to rain and we had parked very far away from where the actual parade happened but luckily I was wearing my rain jacket.

After we arrived home, my host family's best friends came over for some afternoon tea, we had Krapfen and other baked goods, we drank tea or coffee while the kids drank Apfelschorle. (Homemade Apple juice).

Wednesday 1st March 2017:

I met up with Susanne again, we met in Gerstofen and we took the tram to Augsburg. It was surprise to where we where going. The surprise was going to the Zoo. Zoo Augsburg.

This photo above is a Rhino body, with a tiger painted on the front, it then merges into a zebra, each of the back legs is a leopard and the other back leg is an elephant and the tail is also an Elephant's tail.

I found King Julian.

Friday 3rd March 2017:

It was Julian's birthday. He turned 9 years old. Majority of the first day was full of cleaning and setting up for his friends to come for his friend party. His friends came and we had hamburgers and hot chips! We had then droven to a resturant/ bowling place. We only went for the bowling bit though. We all kept changing teams for whatever game we played. My highest number of pins I bowled was 8/9!

After bowling we dropped Julian's friends off at their houses and started to get the house cleaned and ready for the family party which we only had 1 and a half hours to get ready for. Thankfully we all helped out and everything was ready before people started to turn up. After dinner and desert, the kids and I were in the living room with the adults on the other side of the shut door while they talked and we watched cartoons. I played with 3 year old Fabian and 18 month old Elias.

Sunday 5th March 2017:

We went to church, I took Elisa to childrens church and there we sang songs and read bible stories before going and joining the real church for the last few minutes. After lunch Christina took Elisa and I to the Botanical Gardens in Augsburg to see the butterfly house and japanese gardens.

Tuesday, 7 March 2017

I met up with Susanne and we went to Augsburg for the day. We went out shopping and doing random things. We caught the tram to Augsburg, and walked around talking and window shopping to keep us from boredom.

Little Video of the Tram trip 😉^

Tuesday 21st February 2017:

Today was the last day of going to my Deutsch Course as it is the Karnival/ Faschings holiday the next weeks. I said goodbye to my tutor and gave him a little box of chocolates to give my thanks on helping me improve my German. I'm very thankful to Herr Funke for taking his time in helping me with improving my language skills.

Friday 24th February 2017:

Today was the last day of school as it was the holidays for the next weeks. I had baked muffins for my class and teachers, and the leftover muffins from my last batch I gave to my host family and they really enjoyed them that the kids ate all of them before I could take a photo of them. I made the muffins on Thusday. As the final bell rang for the end of school, everyone in my class was happy yet upset. Happy for the holidays and upset for not being able to see me after the holidays as I would leave for New Zealand before school started again.

Saturday, 18 February 2017

Valentines day! In school you could buy a heart for someone, write their name and class on it and it'll be sent to them on this day with a rose or chocolate and lollies. One girl that's on my bus got 13 roses! Mostly from her friends but still. I did not buy a heart for anyone and no one bought one for me so it was algoods. But it was really weird seeing lots of couples being extra romantic. Too much PDA for me thanks.

16th February:

Valentines Disco at the school! Super lit! 6pm-10pm. There was food and drinks that you could buy. As you walked in you were stamped and given a number which is written on a piece of tape, you have to stick it to your clothing. There were tables with pieces of paper and pens on where if you found someone cute you write their number big on one side and a message on the back and you pin it to a wall where they will be able to see it. In another room the music was pumping loudly and people were dancing and sitting. As I arrived there was no good dancing music playing, so I walked back to the room with the tables and wrote down all the good new and old dancing songs on some paper and handed them to the DJ. When the songs I requested came on most of the people screamed and basically everyone started dancing which I was glad about!

17th February:

After school had finished the kids and I had to eat our lunch really fast and get ready for Faschingsball. I dressed up as an Indiana. (A native American). I was to help out Stefan in the kitchen handing out the drinks to the kids and adults which I found super fun. I also had to lead some English dances and I danced with the kids. It was super fun but exhausting. We also had to help clean up, but one of the good things was we had lots of food left over so after cleaning up a bit we sat together and ate the rest of the food.

School was fun with lots of conversation and messing around and talking about everyone's weekend.

31st January:

I had my Deutsch Course in the Library and it was fun! I learnt quite a bit and made a friend on the bus by just saying Hallo! Some Germans aren't that friendly but majority of them are so kind and nice!

4th February:

Jonas had a mini-tounarment for Soccer in the afternoon. We drove with the team in seperate cars behind us as Stefan is the coach. We ended up having to stand for the whole 4 hours of the tournament as there was no where to sit down! Jonas's team came 4th out of 6 teams, but they did play very good.

Week 9:

10th February:

My class and another 9th grade class had a school trip. A history trip... to a Concentration Camp in Dachau. It was quite an experience. It was quite depressing but interesting learning about most of the rooms. I did take some photo's but I won't post them up on here. Dachai Concentration Camp was the first to open up under the Nazi rule, and it stayed open the entire 12 years of Nazi rule. Many people died there, forcefully or by diseases. Just stepping through the entrance gate made most of the people in my small group cry, it was a massive impact.

Monday, 30 January 2017

Time is just flying by, I feel as if though this is my second home country and I met my second set of parents, and incredible "siblings". I also made incredibly awesome friends.

Tuesday 24th January:

After school I had my German course, and I did not miss the bus this time! I have my German course's in the Gersthofen Library, only a few others take the course as well and there's 3 tutors but sometimes only one of them shows up. Herr Funke (Mr.Funke) is my favourite tutor, he's so cool and funny! He's the one that shows up every Tuesday.

Saturday 28th January:

Elena and I decided to meet up in Gersthofen and then go to Augsburg for a little tour and some shopping!

We visited the Rathaus and the Perlach Tower,

We also visited the Fuggeri, which is a place that the rich people built houses for the very very poor people. The houses look exactly the same, but the doorknobs are all different so you knew which house was yours in the dark. People still live there today too!

A little look inside one of the houses bedrooms.^

Jacob Fugger^ Who started the idea of building houses for the poor.

After visiting and walking around the Fuggeri walked towards the City Galarie, which is a great big shopping centre. There I tried Bretzel and it tastes amazing! And Elena and I did a massive shopping spree. As they say Shop till you drop!

Elena^

Sunday 29th January:

We spent the morning at home and then walked to Christina's parent's house for lunch and desert! The food was amazing, we had turkey soup, rolled beef stuffed with gerkins and something else with spatler and gravy. For desert we had icecream and a special type of fruit desert which is extremely sweet.

After lunch we rushed back home and grabbed the sleighs and drove to a little snow mountain. After sleighing we went for a walk in the snow. Let's just say Jonas and I were soaked by the time we got back to the car. We threw snow at each other and pushed each other in the snow. It was fun until we both started to eat the snow because it was being shoved in our faces. 😂